Why We Must Invent a Successful Baltimore

by Newt Gingrich: The current Baltimore cannot be fixed.

However, a new successful Baltimore might be invented.

Let’s start with two reminders of reality: The problem is big; and a lot of smart, decent, dedicated people who have invested their lives and money have still been defeated by the problems.

The truth is: Baltimore is a disaster.

Drug addiction and fatalities have skyrocketed. Baltimore has the highest opioid fatality rate in the country. It also has the highest murder rate in the country per capita. It has an underfunded, inadequately sized police force that is deeply distrusted by the people who most need its help – thanks in part to a current corruption scandal. There is no stability in the police force, as there have been five police commissioners in the four years since Freddie Gray died.

As the murder rate reached almost 14 times the per capita rate in New York City, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley told the Economist the number of police in Baltimore fell from a high of 3,278 in 2002 to 2,514 now. The unofficial motto of the city seems to be “crime up, cops down.”

Since 2007, there have been 3,359 people killed in Baltimore. If Mayor Giuliani’s compstat policing reforms had been applied to Baltimore, 2,519 of those people might be alive today (under Giuliani the murder rate dropped 75% in New York City, and it dropped even further under Mayor Bloomberg).

And finally, as the Economist reported: “Of those murdered in 2018, 84% had previous arrest records—as did 86% of the suspects.”

So, why did 2,519 Baltimoreans have to die unnecessarily?

It’s partly because Baltimore has schools that fail to have a single student performing at grade level – even while the system is spending $16,184 per student.

As Sanford Horn wrote for The Federalist:
“Project Baltimore reported that in 13 of 39 city high schools, zero students were proficient in math. Zero. Let that sink in for a minute. In six more Baltimore high schools, only 1 percent tested proficient. In roughly half the schools, 3,804 students attempted the exam, with a mere 14 proficient in math. Not 14 percent, 14 actual students. It’s no wonder the poverty rate in Baltimore is 22 percent.

“Incompetent so-called leaders and teachers’ unions have corrupted the public school system. They hide behind tenure while indoctrinating students instead of educating them, condemning the next generation to the consequences of the corrupt and broken system they created. It’s not all their fault, though: the children they teach have largely grown up in chaotic homes that do not value learning.”We were warned about the collapse of schools a generation ago. In 1983, The Reagan administration issued A Nation at Risk warning that:“[T]he educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.…

“If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. … We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.

Our society and its educational institutions seem to have lost sight of the basic purposes of schooling, and of the high expectations and disciplined effort needed to attain them.”I participated in press conferences and workshops launching A Nation at Risk 36 years ago. After a generation of effort, disasters like Baltimore have convinced me that we cannot reform the teachers’ union and the bureaucracy which protects it.

From the standpoint of the teachers’ union, the system works perfectly because it pays salaries on time – no matter how many children’s lives are destroyed through a lack of learning.

Furthermore, in most cities the teachers’ unions are the most powerful local power center and can make it too expensive for elected officials to try to reform them. In many ways, the corruption of the school systems, which take money for work not accomplished, is at the heart of the sickness of our most self-destructive cities.

Endemic corruption throughout the local government means a lot of the business community accepts and sustains corruption (politicians don’t bribe themselves).

While there are areas of excellence and prosperity in Baltimore (John Hopkins University and Medical Center for example) they are islands in a sea of poverty, despair, and disfunction. Nearly 81,000 of Baltimore’s 480,000 adults do not have a diploma (and many with a diploma can’t perform at the education level the diploma implies).

The death of Freddie Gray in April 2015, and the riots which followed, spurred a serious effort to turn things around for the poverty- and crime-ridden parts of Baltimore.

President Obama and his administration went to work. Governor Hogan provided state level leadership and funds. Congressman Elijah Cummings worked hard to draw attention to Baltimore’s needs. A number of local leaders committed themselves to helping Baltimore recover. Then, as Erin Cox reported in The Washington Post, “Years before Trump’s attacks, Freddie Gray’s death sparked a huge effort to heal Baltimore. It wasn’t enough.”

The Cox article is a useful outline of the passion, resources, courage, and personal time different people poured into Baltimore in response to what had become an overwhelming crisis. Ultimately, it failed and, if anything, left the reformers more depressed and more discouraged than ever.

Given these realities, I think it is virtually impossible to reform the current Baltimore system. The corruption is too great, the bureaucracies are too powerful, the culture of despair and dependency is too widespread, and the stunning decentralization of authority and activism is too great.

As David Warnock of the Warnock Foundation wrote to me:
“Until we deal with the systematic and pervasive corruption in our city, we will not be able to create the civic institutions that thrive in other cities. Until we prosecute the people who paid off Catherine Pugh for example, another new set will come along to take down the next generation. It’s literally been going on since Garrett ran the B&O railroad in the 1870’s – one white oligarch after another controlling one mayor after another.

“Until the citizens of Baltimore demand better educational outcomes, and that political leaders stand up to the educational status quo that produces some of the worst K-6 outcomes in the country, we are not going to end the cycle of violence in our city and create young people prepared for today’s job market. At Green Street Academy, only two — count ‘em two — out of 125 children who will start with us this fall in 6th grade read at grade level. They were chosen by lottery. Google the probability of a high-quality life if you can’t read by third grade if you want to see the future of Baltimore unless we get serious about educational reform.”Faced with a problem this large, I always turn to two great leaders and their advice on solving really hard problems.

President Eisenhower said, “Whenever I run into a problem I can’t solve; I always make it bigger.”

Albert Einstein asserted, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

We should take the advice of Eisenhower and Einstein and make the problem of Baltimore even bigger and then suggest a dramatically new and different plan for getting to a prosperous, safe, educated, healthy, and honest Baltimore.

We owe it to the children whose futures are being crippled in bad schools, the families whose incomes are being crippled in neighborhoods without jobs, and those whose lives are being threatened by a totally unacceptable level of violence to have the courage to follow Eisenhower and Einstein down a path of new solutions and new courage.
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Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) is a former Georgia Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House. He co-authored and was the chief architect of the "Contract with America" and a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He is noted speaker and writer. This commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions.  Note followup article: Inventing a Successful Baltimore Part 2: What Would Success Be?

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A Hero Comes Home, What's Killing Us

Air Force Col. Roy A. Knight Jr.
(MIA He was Promoted To Colonel)

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: A Hero Comes Home
Fifty-two years ago at Dallas Love Field Airport, Major Roy Knight, Jr., said goodbye to his family, including his five year-old son, Bryan. He was heading off to Vietnam. His family never saw him again.

Major Knight was shot down in combat, and his parachute failed to deploy. Rescue teams could not find him. In 1974 he was declared killed in action and promoted to colonel.

In February, Col. Knight's remains were found and identified. Yesterday, Col. Knight returned home to the United States aboard a Southwest Airlines flight that landed at Dallas Love Field Airport. The plane bearing his remains in a flag-draped coffin was piloted by Col. Knight's son, Bryan.

Canadian journalist Jackson Proskow was at Dallas Love Field yesterday and happened to witness Col. Knight's Dignified Arrival ceremony. He wrote that Southwest agents started handing out flags, and the entire airport fell silent as an announcement about the ceremony was read over the PA system. Proskow added:

"Dallas became the place where the weight of the world seemed to melt away -- the place where the good outweighed the bad for the first time in days. . . It was peaceful, it was beautiful and it was a privilege to watch."

As Americans who lived through the Vietnam era know well, there was tremendous division in our country then. In many ways, this era is reminiscent of the 1960s and 70s. But there was also tremendous decency in the country then and there still is today.

Col. Knight's return is also a reminder of this country's commitment to those missing in action and to our prisoners of war.

You can read more of Jackson Proskow's report here. It is well worth your time.

What Is Killing Us?
In the wake of the tragic shootings last weekend, many Americans are asking the same question: Why is this happening? As I wrote on Monday, I believe it has a lot to do with the decline of faith and the rise of an increasingly, often militant, secular culture.

Or, as one columnist bluntly put it, "We killed God, family, and community -- and now it's killing us." That certainly appears to be the case with the Dayton killer.

The Daily Mail, a British media outlet, obtained pages of the killer's writings. He was an avowed Satanist, writing, "'I am the servant of the serpent evil incarnate, flesh consumer, light destroyer, fueled by hate, rage my strength, distrust my shield."

He wrote about "hunting" people. And friends say he was constantly consuming drugs -- marijuana, methamphetamines, cocaine, and abusing prescription drugs.

Of course, we're getting this information from a British source, not the New York Times or the Washington Post. The American media want to assign blame on two things and two things only, eager to get rid of both: Guns and Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, the country is rushing headlong into the legalization of marijuana, in spite of growing evidence linking marijuana to psychosis.

Kudos to Miranda Devine for her latest column in the New York Post describing the potential link between pot and mass shootings. It should be required reading for every elected official.

As Devine warns, "We've successfully demonized cigarettes while new laws send kids the message that marijuana is harmless." But it is far from harmless. Just consider these excerpts:

"In 2007 the prestigious medical journal Lancet recanted its previous benign view of marijuana, citing studies showing 'an increase in risk of psychosis of about 40 percent.'

"A seminal long-term study of 50,465 Swedish army conscripts found those who had tried marijuana by age 18 had 2.4 times the risk of being diagnosed with schizophrenia in the following 15 years than those who had never used the drug. Heavy users were 6.7 times more likely to be admitted to a hospital for schizophrenia. . .

"A 2011 study in the British Medical Journal of 2,000 teenagers found those who smoked marijuana were twice as likely to develop psychosis as those who didn't. Another BMJ study estimated that '13 percent of cases of schizophrenia could be averted if all cannabis use were prevented.'"

"That's more than 400,000 Americans who could be saved from a fate worse than death."

Other Headlines

• Jerry Nadler drops all pretense, telling CNN, "This is formal impeachment proceedings," adding that Speaker Pelosi is being "very cooperative." This is the clearest signal yet that House Democrats have not abandoned their collusion delusions and will try to impeach President Trump in the lead-up to the 2020 campaign.
• Sen. Lindsey Graham is hinting that big things are coming in the Deep State investigation. Well, I certainly hope so, but I'm tired of hints. I'm tired of explaining to people why Hillary Clinton can get away with jeopardizing national security or why James Comey gets away with illegal leaks when any another American would be locked up!
• Illegal border crossings are finally coming down. Last month, Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 72,000 illegal immigrants, a drop of nearly 50% compared to May. This shows that President Trump's tough approach with Mexico and other Central American countries is making a real difference.
• While progressive politicians and their left-wing media allies have blamed Trump for the violence in Dayton and El Paso, not one Democrat presidential candidate was willing to go on the record condemning the violence of Antifa.
• Speaking of Democrat presidential candidates, or more appropriately Democrat presidential candidates who can't speak, Joe Biden has been in full gaffe mode this week. (Here, here, here and here.) I know that if you are giving multiple speeches a day, there will be gaffes. But Biden is breaking records.
• In the wake of the El Paso shooting, Joe Biden and the left-wing media are trying to resurrect the hoax that Trump called neo-Nazis "very fine people." It's a disgusting smear. Even CNN's Jake Tapper says it's false. Watch this Prager U video for more.
  
• As I told you yesterday, Biden compared Trump to Alabama segregationist George Wallace this week. Well, it turns out that Biden, who worked with segregationists in the Senate, has also praised George Wallace!
• As tensions flare in Hong Kong, the Trump Administration is accusing Beijing of acting like a "thuggish regime." It certainly is that. This week, as a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, I called on China to release underground church leader Hu Shigen, and condemned China's deplorable treatment of religious minorities.

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Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer)  is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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Why Target Tucker Carlson? It's Part of the Left's War on the Right

Victor Davis Hanson

by Dr. Victor Davis Hanson: The mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, have rightly shocked the nation. In our understandable collective furor over the senseless loss of life, all the old political divides are being revisited, now in a climate of often frightening blame, anger and distrust — from gun control to the role of extremist ideologies to mental health to responsibilities of political leaders not to inflame tensions.

Such reexamination is a fine and good thing.

But what is not is a different sort of outrage, one that leverages the deaths of innocents to destroy the reputations and careers of others.

It was to be expected that the progressive media and political activists would go after President Trump and his effort to secure the border by blaming him directly for the deaths in El Paso — while not extending such flawed logic to other mass shooters in Dayton and, previously, in Washington, D.C. Both those shooters explicitly claimed fervent support for left-wing causes and particular progressive candidates, such as Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

No one knows exactly all the factors that trigger the unhinged to shoot the innocent. And in that void of knowledge, it makes no sense either to level charges that will lead to more violence or to damn as culpable those who have not called for violence.

What was really regrettable about the political manipulation of these crimes is the hunt for all sorts of political opponents who can be smeared by falsely attributing to them direct responsibility for the El Paso tragedy.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) tweeted out the names of many Texas political donors to Trump — with the implicit aim of making their lives difficult. Former congressman Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) blames conservatives in general and Trump in particular for the killings — even as he simultaneously sends out pleas for donations to salvage his sputtering presidential campaign.

Protestors swarmed the house of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), screaming physical threats and claiming that he is responsible for the violence by his unwillingness immediately to champion new gun control laws.

We are now witnessing yet another boycott of politically incorrect companies — SoulCycle and Equinox — whose board chairman supposedly no longer warrants his companies’ patronage because he supports Trump.

The subtext of these twisted efforts is that Trump brought out from the woodwork toxic white supremacy that is now everywhere and is the root of violent extremism.

Fox News’s Tucker Carlson has recently questioned all these narratives and now he, too, is a target of the media and the online outrage industry, in calls for sponsor boycotts and his firing.

His sin? Carlson, over the past few months and especially the past few days, has voiced some inconvenient truths that earn outrage but not refutation:

• One, while white supremacy ideology always must be monitored and can trigger the unhinged — as the El Paso shooting may turn out to suggest — it is no longer a ubiquitous movement as it once was in the 20th century.

The days of the Klan and the American Nazi Party are mostly over. They are now fringe organizations. They and others like them are derided by the public, and uniformly condemned by conservatives. To suggest that white supremacy is some all-encompassing, 21st-century existential threat to our collective security, rather than fringe extremism to be carefully monitored, is simply untrue.

• Two, Carlson emphasized that in comparison to America’s real existential challenges — homelessness, drug epidemics, the threat of Chinese mercantilism, keeping a vibrant economy going — white supremacy simply does not register with the general public as a major threat. Certainly, in terms of annual fatal shootings, the staggering death tolls in Chicago and Baltimore suggest a national crisis that is ignored for largely political reasons.

Nonwhite immigrants still sense that reality when they risk their lives to immigrate to a white-majority America. The public knows that the media’s reporting of near-daily anti-Semitic bias is far more likely to emanate from the so-called squad in the House or an unhinged speech of Louis Farrakhan than from the old suspects of the past in bed sheets and swastika armbands. Yet, left-wing anti-Semites are still welcomed or at least tolerated by many in the progressive movement.

• Three, Carlson argued that the United States, while not perfect, is a good nation of good people who daily go about their business judging others by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Its Constitution and popular ethos have always been self-critical, and saw moral and ethical improvement as inevitable as the nation’s stunning technological and material advances. Compared to the alternatives abroad, a multiracial and multiethnic America works and constantly seeks to improve. And Carlson often points out that widening class differences have superseded race as the more worrisome divides in American society.

• Four, and most controversially, Carlson repeatedly has cited political opportunism as the fuel that powers these untruths. He has been unapologetic that those who falsely charge that white supremacy defines America, past and present, have clear agendas. Without such venomous charges, they cannot win popular support: “They promise some Americans reparations, they denounce others for their skin color. They call it ‘privilege.’ The entire country, they’ll tell you, is fundamentally racist and therefore, evil.”

The charge of “white supremacy” has now become the natural heir to the failed narratives of the past three years that Trump should be removed under the 25th Amendment, or that Robert Mueller would find him indictable on charges of collusion and obstruction, or that he is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and, thus, impeachable. All reflect a lack of progressive confidence that they can vote Trump out of office in the next election, and instead seek to use extraordinary means to abort his presidency.

We are already well into the 2020 election cycle. National Democratic candidates are promoting agendas — open borders, free health care and education for undocumented immigrants, reparations, the Green New Deal and “Medicare for all.” None so far poll anywhere near 50 percent approval.

The current effort to tar the country and conservatives with the charge of white supremacy should be seen in just that context of whipping up popular outrage for policies that otherwise do not appeal to most Americans. So often, the charge of white privilege, Carlson has argued, is leveled against those who do not enjoy it by those who do, for a variety of careerist and perhaps psychological reasons.

• Fifth, and finally, Carlson has emphasized that the outrage machine is asymmetrical and there is no disinterested standard by which to adjudicate extremist speech and conduct.

Americans are confused over which standards suddenly are applied to whom. Do the racialist past smears of former Vice President Joe Biden or former Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) illustrate widespread hate speech? What did then-candidate Barack Obama mean when he talked of a “typical white person,” or former attorney general Eric Holder infer when he referred to “my people”? When Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) compares Israelis residing on the West Bank to “termites,” or Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) cites Jewish money and Israeli politicians as running U.S. foreign policy, are there commensurate condemnations?

Why is Carlson then targeted and especially singled out among conservative commentators?

I think there are additional force multipliers to the furor against him.

His show enjoys spectacular ratings. Once signature anchorman Bill O’Reilly left Fox, few imagined that Carlson or anyone else could resurrect O’Reilly’s time-slot audience. Carlson did. And it bothers the left that his MSNBC and CNN competitors do not resonate with the public to the same degree. That he brings in guests with opposite opinions and debates them is not seen in progressive circles as anything to be emulated — especially when leftist guests are not shy in expressing often extreme views.

Second, Tucker is an idiosyncratic, not an orthodox, conservative. He has voiced concern over the role of the Koch brothers and support for the use of tariffs to force China to trade reciprocally and fairly. The Never Trump movement especially dislikes Carlson’s views.

Lots of other Republicans do not appreciate his criticism of optional military engagements or the ubiquitous role of the U.S. military abroad. Often, his on-air conservative guests are as critical and as criticized as liberal ones.

Nor is his support for much of Trump’s populist economic agenda consistent with doctrinaire free-market economics. And the net result is that Carlson’s leftist opponents rightly believe he is not always supported by conservatives and thus can be isolated as a heretic and outlander.

Passions certainly are cresting, but the hatred is still not really proportional.

Conservatives are not swarming the homes of liberal anchors or congressional leaders.

Republicans in the House are not tweeting out the names and employers of those who donate to Biden or Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). Conservatives are not organizing boycotts of companies whose board members support Warren.

Hollywood is not releasing new movies that portray conservatives hunting down and killing liberal elites, and conservative celebrities are not voicing creative ways of shooting, stabbing or decapitating liberal political figures.

Republican leaders are not alleging that the 2017 shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and the recent tragedy in Dayton are the direct results of the polarizing and often shrill rhetoric of Sanders and Warren.

And progressive hosts on the major networks and cable news channels are not targeted for boycotts and firings for their often blunt views, as is now once again the case with Tucker Carlson.
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Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a historian and author most recently of “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won,” and an occasional unpaid on-air guest of Fox News. H/T The Hill

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Analyzing the Pieces of the Democratic Puzzle

Michael Barone

by Michael Barone: "No candidate received a polling bump as a result of the Detroit debates," writes Morning Consult analyst Anthony Patterson this week. That's a big disappointment for the dozen or more candidates struggling to make the Democrats' 2 percent cutoffs for further debate appearances, as well as for the pundits weary after six or so hours of debates and post-debate interviews.

Actually, it appears that Kamala Harris sunk a bit from her numbers after her school busing hit on Joe Biden in the Miami debate, and Elizabeth Warren's post-Detroit numbers are up a bit. In the most recent national polls, Biden is still in first place; Bernie Sanders and Warren are competitive for second; and Harris follows in high single digits, with Pete Buttigieg trailing behind.

What may be more interesting is how the polling differs from previous patterns. In 2016 primaries, white non-college graduates in communities with low social connectedness thronged to Donald Trump, while college graduates shunned him. That was a new pattern, I wrote in a March 2016 Washington Examiner column, and one predictive of how Trump would switch 100 or so electoral votes and win the presidency in November.

So let's look at how different segments of Democratic primary voters are responding to candidates this year.

Start with white college graduates, once a negligible splinter, now about 40 percent of them, according to exit polls. They're also the Democrats' leftmost voters on issues, from impeachment to racial reparations. A post-Detroit Quinnipiac poll with subgroup results shows Warren leading Biden 28 to 25 percent in this group, well ahead of Sanders (11 percent) and Harris, who is tied with Buttigieg (8 percent). White college grads are among the best groups for the articulate Harvard Law professor and the articulate Notre Dame professor's son.

Black voters, solidly Democratic for a half-century, are about 25 percent of Democratic primary voters. MSNBC's Steve Kornacki's useful summary of their primary voting history shows how they've voted near-unanimously or heavily for one candidate -- Jesse Jackson in the 1980s, and Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton since. Note that each of these since Jackson has won the party's nomination. Big margins among one-quarter of an electorate can overcome small margins among the other three-quarters.

Black Democrats' clear choice now is Biden (47 percent in Quinnipiac), with Sanders (16 percent) a very distant second, while the white college grads' favorite, Warren, lags behind (8 percent). Quinnipiac has black candidates Harris and Booker receiving 1 and zero percent from blacks; they do better in other polls but struggle to hit double digits.

Their left-wing issue stances may not help. Echelon Insights polling shows 13 percent fewer nonwhite Democrats identifying as liberal than white Democrats. That suggests that most blacks may not switch to the strident liberal Booker or flexible liberal Harris, as black voters in early 2008 switched to Barack Obama after he showed he could win the Iowa caucuses.

Some Democratic constituencies seem to have an active aversion to certain candidates. Black voters seem to be repelled by Pete Buttigieg; he gets only 1 percent from them in Quinnipiac and has been getting zero percent in other polls. Black voters have been the Democratic constituency least supportive of same-sex marriage.

And very high-income voters, heavily Democratic these days, nonetheless seem to have little use for Bernie Sanders. Among high-income ($100,000-plus) Democrats polled in Quinnipiac, only 6 percent chose the socialist and admirer of 70 percent income tax rates. Similarly, in 2016, he lost the highest-income suburbs -- Greenwich, Connecticut; Winnetka, Illinois; Wellesley, Massachusetts; Bloomfield Hills, Michigan -- to Hillary Clinton by roughly 2-1 margins.

Campaign finance reports show several candidates with home-state fundraising bases but, surprisingly, few with strong home-state polling. Californians cast 17 percent of Democratic primary voters last time, but the RealClearPolitics average of recent (June/July) California polls show Kamala Harris, winner of three California statewide elections, with just 20 percent.

Even more woeful are the hometown showings of the three candidates from metropolitan New York, though that state and New Jersey account for 9 percent of Democratic primary votes. But few are going to Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand or Bill de Blasio. As for Massachusetts, RealClearPolitics has Elizabeth Warren in third place at 12 percent and, in next-door New Hampshire, in second place with 17 percent.

So will relatively moderate blacks (a majority in South Carolina) stick with Barack Obama's vice president? Will white college grads (dominant in New Hampshire) coalesce around someone with a radical platform? Or will the dwindling and less radical white non-college group (still big in Iowa) take over? We'll have answers in 18 months.
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Michael Barone is a Senior Political Analyst for the Washington Examiner and a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel  and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics Shared by Rasmussen Reports.

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Biden Goes All In on the Race Issue

President Johnson signs Civil Rights Act

by Patrick Buchanan: Migrants have been crossing the Mexican border at a rate of 100,000 a month. If one had to choose a word to describe graphically what is going on, would it not be invasion?

Those who believed America’s racial divide would begin to close with the civil rights acts of the 1960s and the election of a black president in this century appear to have been overly optimistic.

The race divide seems deeper and wider than at any time in our lifetimes. Most of the aspiring leaders of the Democratic Party have apparently concluded that branding the president a “racist” and “white supremacist” is the strategy to pursue to win the nomination and the White House.

Here is Joe Biden, speaking in Iowa as President Donald Trump was visiting the wounded communities of Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas: “This president has fanned the flames of white supremacy in this nation. … The energetic embrace of this president by the darkest hearts and the most hate-filled minds in this country says it all.

“We have a problem with this rising tide of … white supremacy in America. And we have a president who encourages and emboldens it.”

What had Trump done to invite such a charge?

The key piece of evidence linking Trump to the mass murderer of El Paso, is a single phrase out of a 2,000-word screed posted on social media, allegedly by the gunman minutes before carrying out his atrocity.

Patrick Crusius said he was striking this blow against the “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” And Donald Trump has often used that term, invasion, to describe the crisis on the border.

Yet the word “invasion” to label what is happening on America’s Southern border long predated Trump, and, moreover, is both an accurate and valid description.

Consider. There are, by most estimates, at least 11 million migrants in the United States illegally, the equivalent of the entire population of Cuba. Lately, migrants have been crossing the Mexican border at a rate of 100,000 a month. If one had to choose a word to describe graphically what is going on, would it not be invasion?

What a panicked establishment, and its stable of candidates, is doing is transparent. By declaring “invasion” — a legitimate description of what is transpiring on the Southern border — to be inherently racist, it is conceding the word has power and is an effective weapon in the political arsenal of those the establishment seeks to censor, stigmatize and silence.

Trump’s adversaries want to stop him from using his most powerful and compelling arguments and images, the ones that enabled him to win the presidency and oust them from power. The left is now using “white supremacy” as its new hate term, because “racist” has all but lost its sting from overuse.

But Biden’s raising of the race issue is going to come back and bite him.

Said Joe in Iowa: “Our president has more in common with George Wallace than George Washington.”

Yet, that greatest of the Founding Fathers, George Washington, whom Biden invoked as his beau ideal of a leader, was a slave owner and demonstrably more of a white supremacist than Trump.

And Biden is likely to be reminded of this by Sen. Cory Booker, his rival for the crucial black vote in the primaries, who, as Joe was speaking in Iowa, was at Emanuel AME Zion church in Charleston, South Carolina, tearing into the founding generation of Washington, Jefferson and Madison:

“Bigotry was written into our founding documents,” said Booker. “White supremacy has always been a problem in our American story.”

“Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny — these tactics aren’t a new perversion,” Booker went on. “They’ve been ingrained in our politics since our foundation.”

Are American voters supposed to respond warmly to this?

Biden’s words in Iowa — “We have a president who has aligned himself with the darkest forces in this nation” — appear to be a lift from Robert Kennedy’s attack on LBJ when Bobby announced for president just days after Lyndon Johnson was badly wounded in the 1968 New Hampshire primary.

Said Bobby of the father of the Civil Right Act of 1964: “Our national leadership is calling upon the darker impulses of the American spirit.”

LBJ and his associates, Bobby went on, “have removed themselves from the American tradition, from the enduring and generous impulses that are the soul of this nation.”

“We are fighting for the soul of America,” echoed Biden in Iowa.

As for Wallace, whom Biden disparages, he was a segregationist, much like Biden’s patron, Sen. Jim Eastland of Mississippi, who called Joe “son,” and Strom Thurmond, whom Biden eulogized and who conducted the longest filibuster in history — against the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

In George Wallace’s salad days, Joe sang a different tune, telling the Philadelphia Inquirer on Oct. 12, 1975:

“I think the Democratic Party could stand a liberal George Wallace — someone who’s not afraid to stand up and offend people, someone who wouldn’t pander but would say what the American people know in their gut is right.”

Perhaps Joe can become such a fearless leader in 2020.
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Patrick Buchanan (@PatrickBuchanan) is currently a blogger, conservative columnist, political analyst, chairman of The American Cause foundation and an editor of The American Conservative. He has been a senior adviser to three Presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and was the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000.

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Tags: Patrick Buchanan, conservative, commentary, Biden Goes All In, on the Race Issue
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Forward March . . .

. . . Democrat’s blind hate for Trump in motivating their march toward impeachment and possibly to there detriment in the 2020 election.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony Branco

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Tags: Editorial Cartoon, AF Branco, Forward March, Democrat’s blind hate, for Trump, motivating their march, toward impeachment. and possibly to there detriment, 2020 election To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

The Left Is on a Mission to Annihilate Conservatism

David Limbaugh

by David Limbaugh: While President Donald Trump is an ideal scapegoat for leftist hatred and demagoguery, the left’s ultimate goal is to permanently reduce conservatism and the Republican Party to minority status by indelibly associating them with racism.

Listen to what the Democratic presidential candidates and other Democrats are saying. If you support border enforcement, you are a racist. If you support Trump, who pushes border enforcement, you are a racist. If you don’t condemn Trump for being a white supremacist, which he is not, you are a white supremacist.

Democratic Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, chairman of the presidential campaign for his twin brother, Julian, published the names of San Antonian contributors to Trump’s reelection campaign, publicly denouncing them for “fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.'”

Castro’s message is clear: Anyone who donates to Trump’s campaign is a racist. As there is little difference between supporting Trump and donating to his campaign, Castro is saying that all Trump supporters are racists. Worse, Castro, and others, are trying to tie the mass shooting in El Paso to Trump and his supporters. There is nothing subtle about this. Their aim is to shame people into leaving the GOP.

One of the doxed donors, William Greehey, who incidentally contributed to Castro’s 2011 and 2013 campaigns, was appalled at this slander and identified it for precisely what it is. “It is just amazing to me that he would do that,” said Greehey. “Then he’s calling me a racist because I’m supporting Trump. I mean, this is just ridiculous. There’s a lot of things you don’t like about the president and his tweeting, but here Castro is doing the same thing with his tweeting.”

Wayne Harwell, another Castro donor caught in his doxing web, said: “If someone dislikes you enough to try to affect your business or personal life, I will not support him anymore. Maybe Castro’s supporters should look over their shoulder. Frankly, I think the nasty rhetoric coming from the Democratic national candidates is worse than anything Trump has said.” Bingo.

Even when called out, Castro didn’t back down, other than to disingenuously claim he didn’t create the list but only shared it. Seriously, Joaquin? He said it wasn’t his intent to target the people he doxed — an outright lie on its face — but would like for them to “think twice about supporting a guy who is fueling hate in this country.”

Sorry, Mr. Castro, and all progressives who keep spreading this lie, but Trump is not trying to build a wall because he doesn’t like Hispanics, and every time you mouth this toxic mantra, you show you are willing to cast all border hawks as racists. More to the point, Castro, you are the one fueling hate in this country, and people are wising up to your scheme.

Sen. Cory Booker is also casting Trump and his supporters as white supremacists. Here’s the logic: Trump is a white supremacist because he wants to protect the border. A white supremacist, who may not even be a Trump supporter, slaughtered people. Therefore, Trump incited the massacre. And those callous enough to support Trump must be white supremacists as well.

Though Booker called on Trump to denounce white supremacy after the shooting, when Trump did just that, Booker would not accept it. Moreover, Booker’s campaign team called for cancellation of all Trump rallies because they are a “breeding ground for racism and bigotry.” Never mind the abominable infringement on people’s constitutional right to association that this unserious dabbler in presidential politics is advocating. Consider the malice in his charge that patriotic Americans gathered together to support President Trump are breeding racism and bigotry. No matter how twisted Booker’s thinking is, he knows better.

If this weren’t proof enough of progressive malevolence, we have the reliably bizarre Joe Biden, who expressly claims that Trump is intentionally stirring up white supremacy. “It’s both clear in language and in code this president has fanned the fumes of white supremacy,” said Biden. “(Trump’s) vacant-eyed mouthing of the words written for him, condemning white supremacists this week, I don’t believe fooled anyone at home or abroad. … Energetic embrace of this president by the darkest hearts and most hate-filled minds in this country say it all.”

It’s obvious that Biden has lost all semblance of shame. The last person in America who talks in code is President Trump. He is direct, and his message is not about racism or white supremacy but about equal and robust opportunity for all.

Obviously, leftists haven’t just gone off the rails with their insane policy ideas (and by “insane,” I mean “crazy”). They are now demonizing half of Americans — the half that don’t embrace their insanity — as enablers of a president who enables white supremacy — though he denounces it. It’s gotten to the point that these intolerant, mean-spirited extremists are trying to harm people simply for having a different political opinion, as shown by their boycotting fitness centers Equinox and SoulCycle because the owner of their parent company hosted a Trump fundraiser.

Leftists are doing incalculable damage to the fabric of society and race relations, but I can’t help but believe that if they keep this up — and they most certainly will — they will pay a heavy political price in 2020.
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David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book is "Jesus is Risen: Paul and the Early Church." Follow him on Twitter& @davidlimbaugh and his website at davidlimbaugh.com.

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Hollywood Film Depicts Liberals Hunting and Killing “Deplorables”

by Todd Starnes: Trump Derangement Syndrome has become something of a cottage industry in Hollywood these days.

Disgraced comedian Kathy Griffin was among the first to fetishize her hatred of the commander-in-chief with a visual aid. Anyone remember the severed presidential head?

Madonna wanted to blow up the White House and Johnny Depp once inquired about the last time a president had been assassinated.

And now comes word of what may be the most depraved anti-Trump propaganda film of all time – a so-called satirical movie that portrays an elite group of liberals hunting and slaughtering supporters of President Trump — for sport.

Universal Pictures is scheduled to release “The Hunt” on September 27. However, they temporarily suspended its marketing campaign “out of sensitivity” to the recent massacres in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio.

The Hollywood Reporter obtained an exclusive copy of the screenplay and noted that “red state” characters wore trucker hats, cowboy shirts and owned guns. The script also explains that one of the characters was stalked and hunted like prey for being pro-life.


“Did anyone see what our rat****er-in-chief just did?” one character asks in the script obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. Another responds: “At least The Hunt’s coming up. Nothing better than going out to the Manor and slaughtering a dozen deplorables.”

It sounds like “The Hunt” is a fine representation of Hollywood’s depravity and their utter hatred of gun-toting, Bible-clinging, flag-waving patriots.

President Obama: If They Bring a Knife, We Bring a Gun
It’s almost as if the screenplay was ripped from the pages of the Democrat Party’s play book. I would not be terribly surprised if a good many lawmakers were advisors to “The Hunt.”

President Obama reminded his loyal fan base years ago that politics was something of a blood sport. If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. That’s what he said.

Remember when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called us a basket of irredeemable deplorables? Or what about that time when former Vice President Joe Biden called us the dregs of society?

And remember how Rep. Maxine Waters told her supporters to “absolutely harass” Trump administration officials?

“And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on the

Maxine Waters: Absolutely Harass Them
Ironically, the film’s trailer shows a Deplorable being attacked in of all places — a gasoline station.

Most recently Rep. Joaquin Castro published a list of President Trump’s top San Antonio donors. He also published their places of employment.

“There can be no other possible motivation to do that other than to have these people be subjected to harassment, Trump 2020 Communications Director Tim Murtaugh told me. “It’s harassment at bes and we don’t even want to think what the worst-case scenario would be.”

Included in Castro’s list of Deplorables were retirees and at least one homemaker. Easy pickings for the predators, I reckon.

Lincoln Was Killed an Actor
The truth is that Deplorables have been hunted by the leftists for quite some time now. I’ve lost count of the number of times Trump supporters have been bullied and badgered and beaten because they want to make America great again.

Just the other day, an unruly mob showed up at Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s home in Louisville, Kentucky. One of the protesters wished that someone would “just stab the motherf***er in the heart.”

So, the next time you hear stars of stage and screen defend movies that depict the slaughter of conservatives or the murder of President Trump, you would be wise to be alarmed.

Just remember, President Lincoln was assassinated by an actor.
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Todd Starnes (@toddstarnes) is A Christian Conservative, the host of Fox News & Commentary and heard daily on 250+ radio stations and on his iTune podcasts.

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Tags: Todd Starnes, commentary, Hollywood Film, Liberals Hunting, Killing “Deplorables” To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Strange Days

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: We live in a strange time when a possible official UFO disclosure by the government doesn’t seem strange at all.

What’s odd is one of the two major American political parties proudly talking up socialism.

What’s weird is the increasing financial instability of the country’s top two social programs, Medicare and Social Security, while Americans seem unworried and politicians push not to shore the programs up, but expand them.

What’s bizarre is over $22 trillion in federal debt, and the current president and Congress piling on ever more with new trillion-dollar deficits.

What’s strange is . . . well, OK: UFO disclosure is a bit strange.

It is worth noting that Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have unearthed quite a lot of information on UFOs already. When FOIA mechanisms were first set up, no one expected the avalanche of requests that would be related to UFOs. But that is what happened — and they haven’t dredged up nothing.

When President Trump was asked about the issue by George Stephanopoulos, his response was dismissive, however. “People are saying they’re seeing UFOs. Do I believe it? Not particularly.”

Like me, he probably has seen nothing first-hand, experienced nothing. But by now he has surely been briefed.

Or has the de facto Deep State coup attempt against his presidency entailed keeping him in the dark?

Meanwhile, Senator Bernie Sanders, running for Trump’s job, told YouTuber Joe Rogan that he would pass on whatever he might learn about UFOs if president. “Alright, we’ll announce it on the show. How’s that?”

Yet even that is not the strangest thing Sanders has said.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Paul Jacob (@Common_Sense_PJ ) is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacob is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service.

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5 Things to Know About the New UN Ambassador

Kelly Knight Craft

by Kaylee Greenlee: Kelly Knight Craft was a business executive and philanthropist when President Donald Trump appointed her as ambassador to Canada in June 2017.

Now Craft is the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, replacing the popular Nikki Haley, a former governor of South Carolina. She has yet to be sworn in.

Trump nominated Craft, 57, of Lexington, Kentucky, after former State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert withdrew from consideration in February, “citing family concerns,” as The Wall Street Journal reported.

On July 31, the Senate voted 56-34 to confirm Craft as U.N. ambassador, with five centrist Democrats supporting her. She had been ambassador to Canada since October 2017.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Craft “an outstanding advocate for America’s national security and economic interests in Canada,” and said she is “extremely well-qualified to do the same at the United Nations.”

Here are five things to know about the nation’s new U.N. ambassador:

1. She managed her own business advisory firm.
Craft headed Kelly G. Knight LLC, a marketing and business consulting firm based in Lexington.

The private company was incorporated in 2005. The Kentucky Registry reports that the company’s registration is still active.

2. President George W. Bush named her in 2007 as an alternate delegate to the U.N. General Assembly.
Craft told the Glasgow (Kentucky) Daily Times in September 2007 that she hoped to focus on “children’s issues” at the U.N., and had a special interest in “health issues relating to children in poverty and in Appalachia.”

She grew up in Glasgow, the daughter of veterinarian and Democratic activist Bobby Guilfoil and Sherry Dale Guilfoi, and she graduated from Glasgow High School.

“It will be a special honor to be part of the U.S. delegation, especially given the enormous global issues at stake for our country,” she said at the time. “I’m grateful for the chance to represent the American people and Kentucky and contribute to our nation through public service.”

Twice divorced, she has been married for more than three years to coal-mining magnate Joe Craft. The Crafts are major donors to Republican candidates, Politico reported, including Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah.

3. She co-founded Morehead State University’s Craft Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics.
Craft Academy is a dual-credit residential high school for “academically exceptional Kentucky students,” its website states.

Since August 2015, the academy has provided a college-level curriculum that allows students to complete up to two years of university coursework while finishing high school.

Craft herself graduated with a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Kentucky in 1984. She also served on the university’s board of trustees until she became ambassador to Canada.

4. She was a leader with the Salvation Army of Lexington and the Center for Rural Development.
Craft’s official bio describes her as “demonstrating a deep commitment to her home state by serving in several leadership roles with the Salvation Army of Lexington and the Center for Rural Development, a nonprofit dedicated to economic development in rural Kentucky.”

Craft also served on the boards of the Kentucky Arts Council, the Lexington Philharmonic, YMCA of Central Kentucky, and the United Way of the Bluegrass, an organization that “fights for the basic needs, financial stability and education of every person in every community across Central Kentucky.”

5. She is friends with Canadian rapper Drake.
The friendship blossomed when Drake visited Craft’s home state for a basketball game.

Delighted that my friend and fellow @UKAthletics fan @Drake was nominated for #AMA Artist of the Year and @BET #HipHopAwards Lyricist of the Year! #BBN pic.twitter.com/N2alAS5mab

— Ambassador Kelly Craft (@USAmbCanada) September 13, 2018

Congratulations @Drake on your seven #GRAMMYs nominations! https://t.co/4m7b2MEWk8 pic.twitter.com/B3A38bNwvA

— Ambassador Kelly Craft (@USAmbCanada) December 13, 2018

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Kaylee Greenlee is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.

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Tags: Kaylee Greenlee, The Daily Signal, 5 Things to Know About, New UN Ambassador, Kelly Knight Craft To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

After El Paso And Dayton, Are We About To Unleash The Thought Police On The American People?

by Robert Romano: “[W]e must do a better job of identifying and acting on early warning signs. I am directing the Department of Justice to work in… partnership with local, state, and federal agencies, as well as social media companies, to develop tools that can detect mass shooters before they strike.”

That was President Donald Trump in remarks on Aug. 5 following the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton that occurred within hours of one another, calling for the Justice Department to work with big tech companies to identify domestic terrorists.

Does this sound familiar? It should.

We have known since the Edward Snowden disclosures of 2013 that the Justice Department, intelligence agencies and big tech companies that provide social media, email and phone services to the American people have a relationship as the U.S. has become a high tech surveillance state of sorts. These programs have had many names. Total Information Awareness, the Bush-era terrorist surveillance program, PRISM and so forth. All with the same stated aim: To somehow prevent terrorist attacks before they happen, by surveilling the American people at large directly.

Americans for Limited Government has stood against both warrantless surveillance programs and those administered by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s rubber stamp judges that have been used on the American people and even political campaigns — the bogus surveillance of the Trump campaign on made-up allegations they were Russian agents being the most prominent example — precisely because they appear to be facially unconstitutional, their effectiveness is unknown and the potential for political abuse has been proven.

These tools have been advocated for after past terrorist attacks and so in that context the President’s call for the Justice Department to surveil social media for potential threats is unsurprising in the wake of the recent attacks.

I suppose it is worth noting that when conservative members of Congress, such as Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), or President Trump call for declaring Antifa a domestic terrorist organization after the Tacoma, Wash. firebombing, or to shut down their social media, or to surveil mosques in the U.S. and their followers or radical Islamist websites, this is precisely what they are asking for (whether they realize it or not). It demands surveillance of domestic political extremists.

Now, surely, after El Paso and Dayton, attacks perpetrated by a right-wing, anti-Hispanic, racist white supremacist who targeted Hispanics because they were Hispanics and a left-wing pro-Antifa ideologue who thought his political opponents were Nazis who deserved to die, both of whom kept active social media presences, the focus is going to be on online instances of advocating violence and hate speech.

Here’s the problem. There is a lot of advocacy of violence on the internet and social media. And wasting time in these forums or on social media is most certainly going to turn up lots of radical, hateful, racist and extremist sentiments from every side of the political spectrum, but very few real terrorists or mass shooters. The internet and social media can be a dumpster fire. There are a lot of sickos out there, but in most cases they’re not actually engaging in violence, even when they’re advocating for it.

Yes, some of the mass shooters and other attempted attacks of recent memory certainly have kept up active social media presences. It is a part of the profile, and these types of postings are certainly becoming more common. It’s standard fare.

So, good luck to the Justice Department or social media companies separating bluster from actual imminent threats. How do you find the needles in the haystack? It’s science fiction. For example, just check out the #Treason and #TrumpTreason hashtags on Twitter and you’ll see what I’m talking about. These are Americans that believe their political opponents are guilty of treason, which is a capital crime, and I suppose who think they ought to be executed. Are those incitements to political violence? The Justice Department could spend the next hundred years investigating every instance of advocacies of political violence on the internet and social media and find very few real, imminent threats.

That is why, even with the tools at the federal government’s disposal and programs like PRISM, it is not possible to prevent every terrorist attack. And it is also why social media companies appear to spend an inordinate amount of time targeting speech that is most probably benign.

For example, James Woods was censored on Twitter because he posted “#HangThemAll” in reference to those federal agents who participated in the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory investigation who he thought might be traitors for pursuing false allegations.

The Mitch McConnell campaign had its Twitter account suspended because they posted a video to criticize extremists who were calling for violence against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

The_Donald subreddit group on Reddit, the largest pro-Trump subreddit, got quarantined because a tiny number of posters there advocated violence against police and government officials. The vast majority of 773,000 posters there are pro-law enforcement, but that doesn’t matter. Reddit said the subreddit was quarantined because the moderators did not remove a few posts out of the tens of thousands that are posted every day, and yet the posts in question were never even reported to the moderators.

President Trump is well aware of how social media companies are suppressing conservatives in the name of eradicating hate speech. He just hosted a social media summit at the White House in July where he declared, “Big tech must not censor the voices of the American people,” adding, “I’m directing my administration to explore all regulatory and legislative solutions to protect free speech and the free-speech rights of all Americans.”

The President noted the removal of tweets by Twitter of actor James Woods as an example of the type of censorship taking place, saying, “James Woods. I don’t know James, but he’s an interesting guy and he’s a conservative guy. And he is a straight shooter. He’s tough. But when they want to take him off — and other people like him; many in this room, some in this room — it’s a very, very bad — it’s a very bad thing.”

In the meantime, groups that openly advocate violence against perceived political opponents like Antifa have widespread social media presences on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Many of the recent mass shooters had active social media profiles that were not policed by these big tech companies or reported to authorities in time to prevent their attacks. The point is, in the name of preventing supposed political extremism, social media companies are already proving they’re not very good at it. They flag false positives and ignore openly violent groups.

Meaning, even if the Justice Department and social media companies were to attempt to “develop tools that can detect mass shooters before they strike,” they would most probably be ineffective and in the meantime be used to target unpopular speech and to engage in censorship. It already has. The people who would use these tools already think Trump supporters and Republicans are Nazis and white supremacists who do not deserve rights, and who want to label Christian, family-oriented groups as hate groups because they do not embrace gay marriage.

In short, it would mean we had invited the thought police to oversee our republic. Maybe we already have.

This is the reason why these mass surveillance programs have been considered a failure publicly but kept on being developed on the classified side of the question. This is the reason William Binney resigned from the NSA in 2001. What’s sick is that these same types of authorities including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act were the ones used by the FBI to look into fictitious allegations that Trump and members of his campaign were Russian agents. What is frightening is the prospect that these authorities might now be turned on the American people — again.

Now, I do not believe that any of this is what President Trump has in mind, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. For those who think these tools will be used for good, whatever can be used against groups you don’t like can also be turned against other groups you do like.

The fact is the federal government does not have a very good track record with operating these types of programs, and we have already seen an abundance of evidence they have been abused to target not those who are violent or pose any real threat to national security, but are political opponents. Trump knows this first hand, better than anyone.

We haven’t even cleaned up the prior messes left behind by foolish attempts to create a surveillance state and thought police. Let’s not create another mess, Mr. President.
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Robert Romano (@LimitGovt) is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

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Tags: Robert Romano, Americans For Limited Government, After El Paso And Dayton, Are We About To Unleash, The Thought Police, On The American People To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!